When he learned about our trip to Portland, one of my good friends from my TAMS days, Jon Black, asked me if we were going to visit the International Cryptozoology Museum.
"Of course", I replied, stroking my beard knowledgeably while internally digesting the fact that an International Cryptozoology Museum existed, and was in Portland of all places (entirely unsurprising is the fact that Jon knew this offhand). After that, well, of course we'd have to visit.
Despite the museum being located several miles from the hotel, well outside the Old Port area, we decided we'd hike it. It would let us see more of the town (the "real" town, you might say, the part that doesn't explicitly cater to tourists like us), and also test our endurance a bit, especially Jen's post surgical foot.
The walk began along Congress, which by this point was quite familiar to us.
This guy again. Must be famous or something.
The museum was quite incongruous in its location in a strip mall. Sadly, the museum was very adamant about not taking photographs, and we felt we should respect that.
That's pretty much it. There was another display that could be photographed, and I thought I'd gotten one, but it's not here. Our shared album (which Blogger steadfastedly refuses to allow me to link to here) has many more pictures, of this and other journeys, and I'll leave it as an exercise to the Reader to find them.
The museum was, all in all, a bit underwhelming. I think it's principally because it could not decide whether it was a collection of curiosities, a demonstration of the evolution of pop culture mythology, or an exhibit of "scientific" attempts to prove the existence of cryptids and urban legends. It does a bit of all of these, and is not always clear on which it is doing.
Still, they had some pretty great stuff, and if you can look past some of the tabloid journalism and filler display material, it's worth a look.
On the way back, we found the ball park, home of the Portland Sea Dogs.
We stopped at a park as well to rest our feet and watch the ducks.
Lunch at Cheese Louise. This was a place that we'd seen many times, as it was near the hotel, and we had to try it on the name alone. It was delicious, and their lemonade (sweetened with maple syrup) was amazing.
This was from a restaurant supply store. I really liked the bag, but we didn't leave enough room in our luggage for stuff this size, so I snapped a picture so I could buy it later (and did; it is the waxed canvas insulated wine bag that the Reader might be familiar with).
